


shatterbone

by narcissae



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 07:13:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissae/pseuds/narcissae
Summary: Riko is an unloveable ugly thing: a study in his father’s absences





	shatterbone

Tetsuji had known when he was saddled with the boy that there would be challenges. He’d expected it. Riko had inherited the Worst of Kengo’s temper, and adopted the most violent parts of Tetsuji’s attitude. That he required disciplining more often than not was no surprise.  
The older he grew, the more Tetsuji was beginning to see he might have made a mistake with the boy, gone wrong somewhere, but he didn’t know how take t back, how to fix it. Riko grew more out of control. Tetsuji became more violent.

He hadn’t expected that the insolent child’s words would strike him so hard, when Riko, at sixteen, stared up at him with a cold calculating look in his eyes, soft full lips twisting into something like a knife, and said quietly, voice dripping with venom and icy fury  
“Why should I listen to you? You’re not even my real father.”

Tetsuji had struck him across the face, and blood had blossomed on his vulgar mouth. And then he’d hit him again. And again. And again. He’d lost his tempter completely and beaten the boy senseless until he was out of breath. Riko knew better than to try to fight him. He never attempted to defend himself from his uncle’s wrath. Tetsuji didn’t stop until he realized Riko had stopped moving, and only then it occurred to him he might have killed the boy for good - and good riddance - an ugly part of him thought, even as he kneeled beside him to check his pulse and breathing. He stood up, straightened out and wiped the blood off his hands, before calling the ravens’ physician to check on the boy.

They moved Riko into the room near Tetsuji'a quarters for easier access.

Sitting on the armchair next to his unconscious nephew, Tetsuji was struck by a bout of guilt.   
He’d never lost it quite so bad with Riko. He’d punished him and Kevin plenty, beaten them, starved them, yes, but the more he looked back on what had just transpired, the more he realized - he could have killed Riko for good?   
And for what? Because the boy had said something that was true? Tetsuji was not Kengo. He would never be Kengo. He would never be Riko’s father. He’d struck the boy across the mouth the first and only time he’d attempted to call him anything other than uncle or master.   
He struggles to remember how the fight had started. Something about Jean Moreau. About Riko being exhausted.

And Tetsuji had said that Riko was worthless and no one would ever love him. That he was an ugly unlovable thing and that’s why he’d been thrown to Tetsuji who had never wanted him in the first place. Nothing if not the things he himself had heard so often as a child.

“And why should I listen to you?” Riko had sneered. “You’re not even my real father.”

Still hopelessly clinging to the hope that one day Kengo would come into his life, embrace him and take him away. Still trying to convince himself that Tetsuji was the monster and the liar.   
Tetsuji had wanted to take that unshakeable faith and shatter it. Physically break Riko out of the belief that help was coming. Help had never come for him, and it would be no different for his brilliant star nephew.

Riko shifted restlessly in the bed. The huge pillows and massive duvet swallowed him whole. He was slender still, smaller than most of his teammates. Now that Tetsuji was looking at him, beneath the bruises, he really did look exhausted. The physician had mentioned that he was malnourished. Riko made a noise. Tetsuji flinched, expecting him to wake up,but he merely struggled to roll to his side, and painfully curled up around one of the pillows, pale hands balled into fists.

Tetsuji felt the overwhelming urge to reach for him, and touch his shoulder, so he did.  
Riko leaned into it with another pained noise.   
“Father,” he mumbled, hiding his face into the pillow. “He hits me.” His voice was soft, broken up by hard breathing. “Make him stop hitting me.”

He clung to the pillow, still leaning into Tetsuji’s hand.

Tetsuji stayed there for a while. Waited for Riko to say more, but he didn’t. He didn’t move when his uncle removed his hand. He stayed curled up, hands curled into fists and ready for a fight.


End file.
